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Conferences & lectures

Resolute Forest Products© presents the Homecoming Keynote lecture: Mohamed Fahmy


Date & time
Thursday, September 22, 2016
6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Cost

Complimentary admission | registration required

Where

Henry F. Hall Building
1455 De Maisonneuve W.
D.B. Clarke Theatre

Wheel chair accessible

Yes

Media in the Age of Terror: How the war on terror became a war on journalism

Thursday, September 22, 2016

  • 6 p.m. (doors open at 5:30 p.m.)
  • D.B. Clarke Theatre, Henry F. Hall Building, 1455 De Masionneuve Blvd. W.

In a discussion moderated by CTV Montreal News anchor Paul Karwatsky, BA 04, Mohamed Fahmy will share his incredible ordeal of arrest and imprisonment as a journalist covering the aftermath of Egypt's political uprisings.

After accepting the post of Al Jazeera English Bureau Chief in Cairo, Fahmy was falsely accused of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood — a group designated a terrorist organization by the Egyptian government. He and his colleagues were imprisoned for more than 400 days alongside members of the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda and ISIS. 

Following massive international outcry, Fahmy was finally pardoned of all charges in September 2015.

Fahmy will speak about what it takes to survive solitary confinement and imprisonment with hardened extremists, far from home and family, and offer unparalleled insights into the motivations of insurgents.

He will explain how press freedoms and ethics are threatened by states and endangered by media organizations and what roles NGOs and human rights advocates play for journalists and prisoners of conscience.

In 2015, he founded the Fahmy Foundation with his wife, Marwa Omara, to champion free speech and fight suppression of the press.

Information: Melanie Gudgeon, 514 848-2424, ext. 5647 or melanie.gudgeon@concordia.ca

Register by phone: 514-848-2424, ext. 4397, or 1-888-777-3330.

Mohamed Fahmy Mohamed Fahmy

About Mohamed Fahmy

Mohamed Fahmy is an award-winning Egyptian-Canadian journalist and author. He has spent most of his career covering conflict zones and some of the most definitive global events that shape our world today. 

During his multi-decade career, he has reported for the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Dubai TV, Al Hurra and CNN. He also spent two years working for the International Red Cross.

His most recent post as the Egypt Bureau Chief of Al Jazeera International captured world attention when he was arrested in December 2013. He was incarcerated for over 400 days — including a month in solitary — alongside ISIS terrorists and some of the most hardened Jihadists in the Middle East in Egypt’s maximum-security prisons. 

The Egyptian government charged Fahmy with conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood and fabricating news to serve the fundamentalist group’s agenda. Since then, Egypt has faced an international outcry from groups ranging from human rights and press freedom organizations to the United Nations, the European Union and President Barack Obama. In September 2015, Fahmy was pardoned by the Egyptian Government.

He returned home to Canada in October of 2015, signing a contract with both the University of British Columbia and the University of Michigan to begin his path of reflection on this life-changing experience.

Paul Karwatsky, BA 04 Paul Karwatsky, BA 04 | Photo: CTV Montreal

About Paul Karwatsky, BA 04

Paul Karwatsky graduated with a double major in journalism and political science from Montreal's Concordia University.

Karwatsky began writing very early in life, helping to start an elementary school paper and then continuing to write throughout high school. He often refers to the day he wrote a commentary on the Major League Baseball strike and was accused of submitting an adult's work as the day he decided that there might be a future for him in journalism.

Paul began his career at CTV Montreal in 2005 as a researcher. He soon moved up to on-air reporting, covering such stories as the de la Concorde overpass collapse, the Dawson College shooting and its aftermath, as well as a series of federal and provincial elections at a time when minority governments meant a very tumultuous period in Quebec and Canadian politics.

In January 2012, Karwatsky was named co-anchor of CTV Montreal's Noon News and flagship 6 p.m. Evening News, alongside veteran broadcaster and Concordia alumna Mutsumi Takahashi.

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